Public space for people
Sunday lunchtime. The sun is shining, the pan pipes are playing and the waiter is serving sea food and pink wine at the table next to us. If you shut your eyes you might be in a typical street cafe in a typical European town centre. And of course that’s where we are. Since Edinburgh is now asking residents for comments on how to improve their public space they might take a few tips on going European from their old rival Glasgow.
There’s a buzz about Buchanan Street which you won’t find in Princes Street or George Street and the difference has absolutely nothing to do with tram works. The secret of success in Glasgow’s shopping centre is giving people room to move. Or in other words, getting rid of cars.
Sitting under Rogano’s umbrella you can hear voices in the air and feet on the street because there is no incessant rumble of traffic. Admittedly Glasgow has done some crazy things, not least driving a bloody great motorway through the centre of the city (maybe one day it will follow the example of other world cities and dig up the M8). But it is miles ahead of Scotland’s capital when it comes to pedestrianisation.
For some pigheaded reason Edinburgh retailers have almost always opposed moves to create pedestrian shopping areas (Multrees Walk is the exception). And where cars are technically prohibited from driving you may be sure to find them parked by pavements where other cities might place cafe tables and seats.
Cars polluting ‘pedestrian’ space in Castle Street – where’s the cafe culture?
I feel depressed every time I walk past Castle Street – with that fantastic view of the castle it could be a great place to open a Rogano style street cafe (come on Oloroso, what’s stopping you?). The Grassmarket is better but there are still too many cars in what could be a great experience of the Old Town.
A barrier of cars in the Grassmarket.
So, it is good to hear that Edinburgh City Council is inviting public opinion about what to do with ‘town centres’ such as Tollcross, Stockbridge, Morningside and Leith.
But I wonder what they will do with the answers. For years good ideas have been collected and then quietly forgotten. Somewhere deep in City Chambers there are plans for Edinburgh city centre drawn up by the urban regeneration guru Jan Gehl, the Danish architect who transformed public space in the cool climate of Copenhagen (his new book Cities for People has just been published).
Much more recently Greener Leith asked local people what would make it easier to move round Leith. Ideas included expanding cycle lanes and cleaning up dog litter. But by far the most popular suggestion was to pedestrianise The Shore (see all the results here).
Lets hope this time the message gets through.
How to transform your town centre? Get rid of the cars.
Just noticed these comments about the Green Bridge idea. The furthest we’ve got with that idea is persuading the council to safeguard the green space on the West side of Leith Walk to preserve the access.
We got a quote from a local architects firm (who first came up with the idea) to conduct a feasibility study into whether it would be really possible to sort out the link on the East side of the walk. It was about £10K
However, we can’t persuade anyone to pay for it – so we’ll never really know whether it’s a viable idea, or how much it would cost to implement.
Our only hope at the moment is to keep the idea alive until property developers start thinking about building along Leith Walk – there are potential development sites either side of the Walk there.
Progress on cutting traffic on the Shore is much better though! But that’s a whole other discussion!
Very interesting, makes Edinburgh’s trams seem a very small engineering project in comparison!
where there’s a will?
Fay,
Well, it will be interesting to see if anything ever comes of the green bridge proposals.
One of the best (and most extreme) examples of removing urban motorways is Boston’s “big dig” where a massive and highly divisive elevated highway was basically re-provided as an underground equivalent, and the land above largely turned into open space. Its been a huge (and extremely costly) exercise over decades, so perhaps on a slightly larger scale than what might be tackled over here, but it does show you that it can be done.
Loads of information on the web, but perhaps a useful first place to start might be here: http://www.massdot.state.ma.us/Highway/bigdig/bigdigmain.aspx
I’m sure there much be other examples, but that’s the one that immediately jumps to mind.
Hi Andy
great to hear from you. I don’t think there has been any progress on the green bridge yet – most of the attention has gone to the Port of Leith biomass projec. There’s so much concern about this the council ran a workshop enabling local residents to understand the complicated planning process for energy proposals (subplot: how to oppose the plans effectively).
Do you by any chance know anything about the cities which have actually dug up urban motorways to create a better living environment? I think there is at least one in the far east and maybe a US example too but haven’t been able to pin them down.
Hi Fay. Another great blog.
I’ve just had a look through the Greener Leith consultation page and, while only 3rd on the list, am fascinated by the discussions of a green bridge over Leith Walk to reconnect the old railway line route (http://tinyurl.com/ld7kzu). There are lots of good examples of how successful this type of thing can be (Paris, London, New York etc) and it would be fantastic to see something similar for Leith.
Slightly off the topic of your blog, I know, but do you know if this proposal has progressed at all?